Viewsonic Viewpad 7 pre-orders open for Nov 15 UK debut

If the fast-approaching Galaxy Tab is too rich for your blood, how about a 7-inch Android slate for a couple hundred less; Viewsonic's Viewpad 7 is roughly the same size as the Samsung, but has gone up for pre-order in the UK at £399.99 ($634) versus the Galaxy Tab's £529.99. Your money gets you a lower resolution display (800 x 480 versus 1024 x 600) and a slower processor, but for many the cost saving - itself likely to increase as more vendors start offering the Viewpad 7 - might push the slate into impulse-buy territory.

So far, only Misco is accepting preorders, but Maplin, Scan and Expansys are all tipped to be joining in ahead of the Viewpad 7's UK release on November 15. The likelihood is that we'll see the price slip under the £350 point - as promised when we played with the Viewpad 7 at IFA 2010 - as the tablet market hots up.